“Crime Does Not Pay”

Yes, the distinction between earned and unearned wealth is indeed critical. And yes, I agree with your identification of monopoly control of resources as being at the root of the problem.

Of course the chief monopoly is that of creation of money which governments share with the international banking oligarchy. It is through the monopoly of money-creation that the oligarchs and militarists gain hegemony. Keynesian economics was the stroke of genius by which unlimited wealth could be funneled into the hands of the war-mongers with the bankers reaping the profits.

This is the paradigm by which the West functions. As time goes on and the superstructure becomes evermore shaky, the further are the extremes to which the ruling class must go to maintain power. Every other value, whether economic or cultural, is sacrificed to the mechanisms of control. These mechanisms are increasingly operated by outright criminals of the Mafia type.

I would say that at least half the population of the developed Western nations see through this facade and a higher proportion of the rest of the world. The control is facilitated by all vested interests including the churches. For all established churches, the individual human person is a sheep to be sheared. The churches are allowed to exist only because they serve the interests of the oligarchs so well.

There is always a trade-off, of course, because enough of the sheep must be kept alive to purchase the output of the rulers’ factories, whether located in China, Indonesia, or elsewhere. So there always have to be concessions in order to still provide the sheep with basic sustenance. Too much provender, of course, and the sheep get uppity, so to speak, and expect more.

The current balancing act being carried out by the Obama administration in trying to engineer a “soft landing” after the explosion of the recent financial bubbles, is a good example of trying to keep enough of the sheep on the plantation to permit the wheels to keep turning. Their true colors are shown by the president’s plan to freeze Social Security and other individual benefits, thereby subjecting individual income to the ravages of inflation, while allowing spending for the military, “homeland security,” interest on the national debt, etc., to grow without limit. (Note: It is not clear whether the desired cuts to individual benefits will come from the freeze cited by President Obama in his January 27 state-of-the-union speech or from his proposed budget commission to be convened to reduce the federal deficit.)

Having said all that, it is clear that Russia is the fly in the ointment, having rediscovered, under Putin, the ability of the state to harness resources for the good of society while utilizing the power of autocratic government to protect the people from the oligarchic wolves. The same goes to some extent for China and India and to those Latin American republics, including Venezuela and Brazil, that are inching off the plantation.

All this is laying the scenario for World War III, with the Russian nuclear deterrent playing the key role in keeping the Western wolf-states at bay. At a certain point, of course, the shifting snow-pack turns into an avalanche. Such an event is obviously coming.

Meanwhile, there is no chance that anyone within the West can make the slightest degree of difference by directly attacking the ruling oligarchy. They are protected with the greatest police-military power ever seen. What can be done against people who can perpetrate events like 9/11, surreptitiously blow up whole cities, as evidently was done in Haiti, or illegally track down and assassinate anyone anywhere who gets under their skin?

Better, perhaps, just to lead a quiet life until things blow over, especially since open rebellion is so easily diverted into frauds like the tea-party phenomenon.

The one saving grace for the U.S. is that there is still a semblance of the Second Amendment so that people, if they are careful, can still arm and protect themselves to some extent against legal and illegal thuggery. And they can start to grow their own food, as many are starting to do. Books on topics like “urban homesteading” are becoming best-sellers.

Someday mankind will wake up and see the truth, which is that the earth was made equally free for all. It is essential for a few people to understand this and carry the torch into the future. But there is likely to be a huge calamity in the meantime that will bring down the whole despicable superstructure. Though it often seems otherwise, “Crime does not pay.” The law of Karma comes from a higher level and cannot be repealed, even by the CIA, the Israelis, or the U.S. Congress.